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ByStevePeoples The Associated Press WASHINGTON Presidential candidate Donald Trump ruled out the prospect of a third-party White House bid Thursday and vowed to support the Republican Par- ty's nominee — whoever it may be. The billionaire business- man announced his deci- sion in a raucous news con- ference at Trump Tower, the gold-hued skyscraper in midtown Manhattan where he launched his surg- ing and front-running cam- paign for president. "I have signed the pledge," Trump said, add- ing that he intends to win the nomination himself and face whoever the Dem- ocrats nominate. "So, I will be totally pledg- ing my allegiance to the Re- publican Party and the con- servative principles for which it stands, and we will go out and we will fight hard and we will win," he said. Trump's decision comes weeks after he roiled the race for the GOP nomina- tion when, in response to the first question at the opening debate of the 2016 campaign, he refused to promise to back the party's nominee if he fell short. He was intensely lob- bied by Republican Na- tional Committee leaders, who have struggled to rein in the unpredictable former reality television star. The decision puts an end — for now — to the ner- vousness felt inside the GOP about the prospect of Trump holding firm and keeping his options open. At the debate, he said that gave him "a lot of leverage." POLITICS Trump signs pledge to back GOP's 2016 presidential nominee By Anne Flaherty The Associated Press WASHINGTON Almost 12,000 students are ask- ing the federal government to discharge their college loan debt, asserting that their school either closed or lied to them about job pros- pects, according to govern- ment data released Thurs- day. Already, claims total- ing about $40 million in loans have been approved. That's only a fraction of the potential cost to tax- payers if all the students affected by the collapse of Corinthian Colleges file claims. Education Depart- ment Undersecretary Ted Mitchell said the potential student loan relief could to- tal $3.2 billion. The claims already filed represent an unprecedented spike in what's called a "borrower's defense" claim following the collapse of Corinthian Colleges, a for- profit college chain that had become a symbol of fraud in the world of higher ed- ucation. Department regu- lations allow students who believe they were victims of fraud to apply to have their loans discharged. Officials say they knew of five or so such cases in the past 20 years; some 4,140 have been filed since the Education Department's June announcement that it would make the debt-re- lief process easier. Officials say an additional 7,815 Co- rinthian students have filed claims for debt-relief be- cause their school closed. Of those closed school claims, the department said 3,128 had been approved, totaling about $40 million in student loans. The Obama adminis- tration is trying to rein in the for-profit college indus- try, which it says relies too heavily on federal student loans and often misleads students on job prospects. In its latest move, the Edu- cation Department on Aug. 28 sent a letter to DeVry University asking the for- profit institution for proof to support its job placement claims. EDUCATION Students ask feds to discharge college debt By Michael Rubinkam and Geoff Mulvihill The Associated Press PHILADELPHIA They rum- ble past schools, homes and businesses in dozens of cit- ies around the country — 100-car trains loaded with crude oil from the Upper Midwest. While railroads have long carried hazardous ma- terials through congested urban areas, cities are now scrambling to formu- late emergency plans and to train firefighters amid the latest safety threat: a fiftyfold increase in crude shipments that critics say has put millions of people living or working near the tracks at heightened risk of derailment, fire and ex- plosion. After a series of fiery crashes, The Associated Press conducted a survey of nearly a dozen big cities that, collectively, see thou- sands of tank cars each week, revealing a patch- work of preparedness. Some have plans specifi- cally for oil trains; others do not. Some fire depart- ments have trained for an oil train disaster; others say they're planning on it. Some cities are sitting on huge quantities of fire-sup- pressing foam, others re- port much smaller stock- piles. The AP surveyed emer- gency management depart- ments in Chicago; Philadel- phia; Seattle; Cleveland; Minneapolis; Milwaukee; Pittsburgh; New Orleans; Sacramento, California; Newark, New Jersey; and Buffalo, New York. The re- sponses show emergency planning remains a work in progress even as crude has become one of the na- tion's most common haz- ardous materials trans- ported by rail. Railroads carried some 500,000 car- loads last year, up from 9,500 in 2008. "There could be a huge loss of life if we have a de- railment, spill and fire next to a heavily popu- lated area or event," said Wayne Senter, executive director of the Washing- ton state association of fire chiefs. "That's what keeps us up at night." The oil comes from North Dakota's prolific Bakken Shale, an under- ground rock formation where fracking and hor- izontal drilling have al- lowed energy companies to tap previously inacces- sible reserves. The production boom has made oil trains a daily fact of life in places like Philadelphia, where they roll past major hospitals, including one for children. In Seattle, they snake by sports stadiums used by the Seahawks and Mar- iners before entering a 110-year-old tunnel under downtown. In Chicago, they're a stone's throw from large apartment buildings, a busy expressway and the White Sox's ballpark. Before the rise of shale oil and the ethanol indus- try, hazardous materials were typically shipped in just a handful of cars in trains that hauled a variety of products. But the trains now passing through cit- ies consist entirely of tank cars filled with flamma- ble crude. These so-called unit trains offer increased efficiency but magnify the risk that hazardous materi- als will be involved in a de- railment. That has led some resi- dents and emergency man- agement experts to worry it's just a matter of time before a catastrophic de- railment in a city, where, according to a 2014 U.S. Department of Transpor- tation analysis, a severe accident could kill more than 200 people and cause $6 billion in damage. Two summers ago, an oil- train derailment, explosion and fire showed the power of such a disaster in even a small town, when part of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, was leveled and 47 people died. There have been at least six oil-train derailments in lightly populated areas of the U.S. and Canada so far this year, most resulting in fires but none in deaths. Cities have responded with varying levels of ur- gency.Milwaukee,forexam- ple, provided basic training in crude-by-rail shipments and accidents to more than 800 firefighters, sent its hazmat team to Colorado foradvancedtrainingonoil- train accident response and meets regularly with rail- road officials. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, says it has not yet conducted training ex- ercises or met with railroad officials but will do so once its oil-train emergency plan is complete. On the federal level, new rules aim to reduce the chances of a catastrophic derailment by lowering speed limits in cities, or- dering railroads to install electronic braking systems and requiring a phase-in of stronger tank cars begin- ning in 2018. TRANSPORTATION AND SAFETY Big cities scramble to be prepared for oil train disaster MATTROURKE—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Train tank cars with placards indicating petroleum crude oil stand idle on the tracks in Philadelphia on Wednesday. FacebookPage 4,296fans + 24 this week .. and growing, every week! Daily News Facebook fans receive special posts of breaking news, sports, weather and road closures, clicking right to full stories and photos published on redbluffdailynews.com ... 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